STEPHEN FEINSTEIN DIED DOING WHAT HE LOVED BEST
Samuel M. Edelman
The Cutting Edge
March 12 2008
DC
Tuesday March the 4th Dr. Stephen Feinstein, director of the University
of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, died of an
aortic aneurism that led to cardiac arrest while he was speaking at
the Jewish Film Festival. Steve was 65. He died doing what he loved,
what he was passionate about, what consumed him. He died talking
about the Holocaust. His death leaves us, his family, his colleagues,
and his friends, his students breathless, bereft, and stunned.
Steve was such a presence for all of us. He encouraged us; he supported
us with positive ideas with suggestions of resources with exciting
collaborations. His research and writing on art and literature of the
Holocaust, getting recognition of the Armenian Genocide, on Darfur,
on developing teaching materials on genocide was critical. His emails
and his sharing of ideas and concerns with colleagues all over the
world will be missed. He was the ultimate information source. Never
to see his daily emails again is painful.
Most important of all was his gentle sense of humor and his smile.
Steve was working with a group of us from the US and Poland to prepare
to teach about the Holocaust to Polish teachers this summer.
His death is an unbelievable loss not only to his wife and children,
his colleagues, friends and students at the University of Minnesota
but to all of us struggling to fight against the indifference and
hate that leads to the greatest scourge of humanity-genocide.
Samuel M. Edelman, Ph.D. is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism) and
Co-director, State of California Center of Excellence for the Study
of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance.